


In the skin of a Lion

by HeWhoIsMany



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Corruption, F/F, F/M, Transformation, skinsuit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:07:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25184542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeWhoIsMany/pseuds/HeWhoIsMany
Summary: While hiding out in King's Landing, Alayne Stone finds herself visited by someone she never thought she'd see again, and gifted with an opportunity unlike any other.
Kudos: 9





	In the skin of a Lion

It had been several years since Alayne Stone had assumed that name under the persuasion of her guardian, Petyr Baelish. By then, she almost never thought out herself as Sansa Stark any long, preferring to focus on the present, on staying alive.

To many, Petyr was known by the moniker Littlefinger, as the Lord of the smallest of the Finger’s. A man of cunning, he had taken Alayne under his wing and shaped her in his own fashion. Alayne could not deny the influence he’d had on her. The naivety that once blinded her was almost entirely gone now, and she was well versed in the kinds of schemes and plots that Littlefinger excelled in.

Of course, it was because of one such machination that they were where they were. His plan to rule the Vale through his stepson, the ever-ill Robert Arryn, had backfired spectacularly. Nearly every lord in the Vale had risen up to remove Littlefinger, having pieced together the traces of his hand in Lady Arryn’s untimely demise and his influence on the young lord. Still, Littlefinger had enough ‘friends’ in the right places to hear about the coup before it occurred, and was able to smuggle himself and his ‘daughter’ out of the Vale before either could face justice.

That was how they managed to come back to King’s Landing, so Littlefinger could try to curry favor with the new King of the realm, Tommen. At first, Alayne had been scared someone would look at her and see the same Sansa Stark who had once lived in the Red Keep. But no such recognition occurred. The brown dye she used on her hair ensured that wasn’t an issue, and she had grown up into a young woman since her departure.

Thus, on the day that would change her life forever, Alayne Stone was living in one of Littlefinger’s holdings in the city, sitting inside while he was out working his trade. Such trade, of course, was politics. Their primary obstacle was the influence House Lannister still held over the city, and the family’s still unpaid debt towards Littlefinger for his betrayal. Smoothing that over would require an extraordinary amount of money and favors, something he was still doing his best to acquire and dispense.

The more Alayne had grown to understand Littlefinger, the more she realized she had misunderstood him from the beginning. The man had a reputation for being an untrustworthy, though harmless, schemer, but as Sansa she had quickly learned that was not the case. Her opinion of him had been revised, as she then saw him as a brilliant strategist, using everyone in the realm and beyond as his pieces.

That, too, was a mistake. No, what Alayne now saw was that there were many in the Seven Kingdoms who played politics like cyvasse. Littlefinger was not one of them. Or rather, he was one who could not win that way. Instead, every time one of such players had outmanuevered him, Littlefinger would get up from the table and leave the game unfinished, moving on to a new opponent and a new game. His skill came not from long-term planning, but from short-term gains and an ability to think on his feet. More than that, it came from an iron will to survive, at any cost. That had been one of his most important lessons to Alayne: they were both people who could not win the game other’s played on their terms. So they survived. They survived and survived and survived, and they remembered. When the time came that they finally outlasted them all, and managed to earn what they wanted, they could enjoy a little time for revenge.

Alayne also thought about why he’d taken her in, protected her, and taught her. He was grooming her, she was well aware of that. Not only because she was the heir to Winterfell, a valuable resource to keep close to him, but because he lusted after her, the same way he had lusted after her mother.

The man claimed he had loved her, but Alayne had seen love before, a long time ago. In the moments spied between her mother and father, quiet times when anyone who was around them could see how deeply Ned and Catelyn Stark adored each other. Even now that both were dead, Alayne could still remember those moments, if she tried hard enough. What Littlefinger had felt for her mother was nothing like that. It was desire, to be sure, but only because he wanted to possess her. She was a prize ever out of his reach, the kind men like Littlefinger coveted the most.

Since he couldn’t have her, he had settled for Alayne, who looked more and more like Catelyn Stark the older she became. Alayne just hoped that she had already become more cunning and quick-witted than her mother. She didn’t want to face the same fate.

There was a knock at the door, surprising Alayne. It could not be Littlefinger, he was meeting with the current leader of the Gold Cloaks, some man whose name Alayne could not recall. The city guards went through captains like shit through a goose.

Taking a second to check her mirror and make sure she still looked proper, yet plain enough to be a bastard, Alayne rose from her seat and moved towards the door. Without opening it, she asked, “Who is there? I was not expecting visitors.” After all, it always paid to be cautious.

After a few seconds, a meek voice replied, “My apologies, m’lady, but I was told to bring you a meal.” That was a surprise, but not a completely unprecedented one. Littlefinger still seemed to think a surprise treat could worm himself further into her good graces.

Opening the door, Alayne saw it was a servant girl in plain brown clothes, perhaps a few years younger than her, holding a covered tray. Giving the timid creature a tired smile, Alayne told her, “Come in, we can eat it together.” She looked back at much of her past actions in King’s Landing with distaste, and her treatment of the lowborn was one such blight. Aside from her trauma-induced expanded empathy, Alayne had learned from Littlefinger that finding allies among commoner’s was an invaluable skill, one few lords or ladies ever cultivated.

Eyes on the floor, the servant nodded and entered the room, Alayne closing the door behind her. She walked up to the room’s table and set the tray onto it, then turned back towards Alayne. For the first time, her head tilted up to look straight at Alayne. The girl’s features were darkly tanned, her hair a tangled black nest, and she had a scar running down one cheek. “Do you remember me, m’lady?”

Now Alayne felt quite awkward. The girl’s features were noteworthy enough that if she’d met the servant before, she certainly would have remembered her. But not even a flicker of recognition graced Alayne, leaving her to assume the girl had mistaken Alayne for someone else. Of course, Alayne could lie and pretend to know her, but she’d long since learned that was the move of an amatuer. Such a fib was more likely than not to bite one in the backside, and the truth was more humanizing and empathy-building than most would think. So Alayne flinched and told her, “No, I’m sorry but I can’t recall ever meeting you before. What is your name?” This could prove useful, she thought. A King’s Landing servant must overhear quite a bit.

Then, in an instant, the servant’s manner changed entirely. Gone was her timidness, her latent fear of a noblewoman who could do any number of terrifying things to her without even the possibility of punishment. Instead, the girl smiled at Alayne, a look of bravado and hope in her eyes, tempered with a fear that this could go wrong. “You’re sure you don’t recognize me?” she asked again, and now something about how she said it did ring a bell in the back of Alayne’s mind. Then, the girl reached up to touch her face, and when she pulled her hand away, she’d taken what looked like a mask with her. Now, the girl looked entirely different. Her hair was now a mousey brown, her skin the same pale shade as Alayne’s, and even after several years, there was no way Alayne could fail to recognize the face smiling at her. “You’re an even worse sister than I remembered, Sans-”

Before she could even finish the sentence, Alayne had the girl in her arms, and tears were running down her face. “Arya!” she cried into her sister’s shoulder, gripping her tightly. Even through her thickly maid servant’s clothes, Alayne could feel her sister had grown. She felt like an athlete. When she pulled away, she saw Arya was struggling not to start crying as well. “I can’t believe...how did you do that?! Where have you been?” Now that Alayne was starting to catch up to the fact that the servant who had entered her room was actually somehow Arya, she wanted to know how.

That was how Arya began to tell Alayne her story. Being almost drafted in the Night’s Watch, captured and kept at Harrenhal, abducted by the Hound, running away to Bravos, training to become a Faceless Man, then escaping after having been taught all she wanted to learn. That was how she’d appeared to be a different person. Apparently, the infamous assassins across the Narrow Sea had genuine magic at their disposal, sorcery somehow related to their worship of the Many Faced God. Alayne only got the briefest summary on that day, and would later learn all the fascinating details.

But once she knew all of that, Alayne still had a question. “Why did you come to me, though?” It wasn’t as if she was upset to see her little sister after so long apart, far from it. But with newfound freedom and the ability to appear as anyone, Alayne couldn’t understand why she would be her sister’s first choice. After all, they hadn’t seen each other last on the best of terms, and Alayne had no illusions as to who her favorite sibling was. “You could have gone to see Jon...” Their bastard sibling was apparently still Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, though odd reports of an attempted coup had filtered down to those in the South.

Arya grinned that same smile Alayne saw so often as a child, a sign that her sister was about to do something she shouldn’t. They moved back towards the table and removed the cover from the tray. It was not food there, but another mask. Something about the features on this one were very familiar to Alayne, but she couldn’t tell exactly what. “This is for you,” Arya explained, holding it out to her sister. “I’ll show you how to apply them, it’s quite easy.” Thus, with some reluctance, Alayne followed her sister’s instructions.

All her years of learning caution and distrust just seemed to evaporate in the presence of Arya. So much had changed in Alayne’s life since she was Sansa, but her love for her family had not diminished in the slightest. Carefully, Alayne picked up the mask and held it up to her face, then repeated a strange Braavosi incantation that Arya told her. Suddenly, it felt like the mask was warm, as much so as a person’s skin. Then the heat increased, until she began to fear it would burn her.

But then, all at once, the mask disappeared, and with it, the scorching heat. Alayne was standing where she had been before...but something was different. She was different. Without even having to look in a mirror, Alayne knew her body had changed, been altered somehow. In the same way Arya had appeared so much like a nondescript servant that her own sister couldn’t recognize her, Alayne’s body had been magically altered. She felt taller, for one thing, and judging by the tight pain she was feeling from her undergarments, she was larger in certain areas.

“Here, let me show you,” Arya said, her voice excited, as she took Alayne’s hand and brought her over to a nearby mirror. Standing there, next to Alanye’s sister, reflected in the mirror was not the bastard daughter of Littlefinger. Nor was it Sansa Stark, heir to Winterfell. No, it was someone else, someone Alayne hadn’t seen in person in years. Despite the time elapsed, no one who had ever met Cersei Lannister could ever mistake her for someone else.

Before Arya had shown up, Alayne hadn’t been expecting any visitor’s for the day, and so wore a simple dress befitting her station as a noble’s bastard. Now, that light grey fabric was straining to contain who she had become. Alayne had always been fairly well-endowed when it came to her chest, but the best size she sported now was enough to begin to spill out of the undergarments under her dress, creating a clear bulge where the tissue was overflowing. Her midsection faced a similar issue. Age and childbearing had added a roundness to the figure of the famous Queen, so that even without a corset on, Alayne felt like she needed to suck in her stomach. Her butt, perhaps more than any feature, had grown far beyond its limits, enough that she was worried it could show to anyone looking at the dress too closely from behind.

The face was the hardest thing to look at for Alayne. It matched every expression she made, no matter how unlike Cersei they were. This was a woman she hated with a fury Alayne rarely was capable of, and it was her face she had to look at. The dyed brown hair had somehow become Cersei’s golden Lannister locks as well, leaving her the perfect image of the bitch from head to toe.

Alayne turned to look at Arya, unsure how to feel about any of this. “What...how? Why?” For some reason, Alayne briefly felt annoyed at herself for sounding so uncultured as she babbled nonsensically, but the feeling quickly passed.

The questions actually made Arya laugh, but from the oddly raspy sound of it she hadn’t made that sound in ages. “Make up your mind, then I’ll give you an answer.” Immediately, Alayne put her hands on her (now wider) hips and glared down at Arya, before the younger sister rolled her eyes and said, “Okay, I suppose I’ll tell you. I can’t really tell you how, but I figured out how to make these masks from the Faceless Men’s magic. All you need to make one is some piece of that person.” Alayne gave Arya a shocked look, but the assassin shook her head. “No, not like that. I mean, well, yeah, I could do it like that, but I didn’t this time. I just took one of Cersei’s hairs from her brush.”

“That explains the ‘how’,” Alayne said, arching one of Cersei’s perfect eyebrows. “But not the ‘why’. Do not get me wrong, Arya. I am overjoyed to see you again, and this magic you’ve brought with you is a game-changer, to say the very least.” Already, Alayne found herself thinking of ways it could be used. How to take power, how to keep it, and how to abuse it. They were the kind of thoughts that didn’t normally occur to Alayne, but she was too busy indulging them to consider why they came up.

Something predatory appeared in Arya’s eyes, and she told her sister, “So you can replace her, obviously.” The words hung in the air for a few seconds, and Alayne sucked in a breath. In one move, she would go from powerless, to nearly all-powerful. Even after her public blunder a few years ago, Cersei was still one who had a firm grim on the king’s ear. “I also managed to pilfer one of her outfits. Getting you into the palace may be a bit tricky, but once you’re there I can quietly make the original Cersei ‘disappear’. Then, with you in her place, you can start working to fix everything they’ve broken.”

The idea was appealing to Alayne’s ears, if not outright intoxicating. Of course, Alayne had fantasized over the years about what she could do if she were suddenly the Queen, or in this case, the Queen Mother. Destroying the Boltons once and for all, returning the Riverlands to peace under Tully control, the evisceration of House Frey for their betrayal. But in that moment, there was something else that felt right about all of this. Grabbing power, using it however she liked...perhaps she could truly indulge herself in all the things she’d never gotten to really experience. Sex, money, luxuries of all shapes and sizes, as much wine as she could drink...

Suddenly, the kingsroad her thoughts had been happily marching down was laid bare to Alayne. She...she was thinking like...”You’re feeling it, aren’t you?” Arya asked, making Alayne recenter her focus on the teenager. “That’s the risk of the Faces. Whenever you wear one, it’s more than just a disguise. In some ways, you truly become that other person. Just try to remember who you really are under there, and you should make it through this. After all, you’re my sister.” With that in mind, Alayne...no, Cersei was ready for the plan to go into action.

Arya brought in the dress, one made of such expensive materials that it alone could finance a dozen of Littlefinger’s schemes. After putting on the Face of that servant girl, Arya guided Cersei through King’s Landing. It seemed the girl from the North had been in the city longer than Cersei had known, because she was effortlessly able to weave them through the great stinking city while evading the notice of anyone who would be able to stop them. No Gold Cloaks, no noblemen, and no Littlefinger.

It was only once they’d reached the Red Keep, by moving through secret passages that Arya assured Cersei few knew about, that they made their move. According to what Arya said, the real Cersei was taking an ‘afternoon constitutional’ in her bedchamber. Cersei stayed hidden while Arya moved throughout the palace, effectively invisible thanks to her Mask. Less than an hour later, Arya was back, and informed Cersei that she was now the only Cersei in the building.

Deciding not to ask questions about just what exactly had befallen the original, Cersei slotted herself into the Queen Mother’s life as usual with surprisingly little in the way of difficulties. Some part of the magic gifted her with knowledge of Cersei’s life as it was needed, letting her know exactly who everyone was and what she could do with them. Or do to them.

After writing a few important letters that would change the face of the Realm, Cersei spoke with one of her men within the Gold Cloaks to arrange something special for after dinner. Other than that, she tried to match the original Cersei’s schedule, so not to arouse suspicion. Tommen, it seemed, was beginning to grow into quite the young man, with no help from his mother of course. Margaery was another odd case. Now Cersei’s equal, if not better, in beauty, the red-headed flower looked at her mother-in-law with nothing but hate cloaked in niceties. Cersei understood why, but made it a point to do everything she could to win her old friend over.

Once dinner was done, Cersei returned to her royal apartment, and waited for her special ‘desert’. Just after sundown, two gold cloaks entered her room, carrying with them a special prisoner. It seemed, just as Cersei had ordered, Petyr Baelish had been roughed up, just a little. Now sporting a black eye and a cut lip, the traitorous snake had the gall to look at Cersei with an attempt of reverence and loyalty. “My Queen,” he said, bowing his head. “May I ask why I’ve been brought here? Or how you knew I’d returned to King’s Landing?”

For some time, Cersei said nothing. Instead, she just looked down at the kneeling wretch of a man who had ruled her for years, attempted to shape her into his toy, his doll, his pretty bird. Those days were over. Now it was she that held the power. And she quite enjoyed using it. “I know, Littlefinger, of all you’ve done since you were last here. The murder of Lysa Arryn. The attempt of a coup in the Eyrie.” She let the words sink in, before she then added, “‘Alayne Stone’, as you have been calling her, has been removed from your custody. I’ll do with her as I see fit.” Before Cersei had added that detail, she could look into Littlefinger’s eyes as he planned ways to explain all he’d done in a way that Cersei would applaud.

But after she had said that about the man’s ‘ward’, he looked at her with nothing but bile. “Am I free to go, my Queen?” he asked, refusing to even try to hide his distaste for how she had ruined his longest scheme yet.

Originally, Cersei had planned to let the man walk out, battered and defeated. But she couldn’t pretend that she didn’t see now how he saw her: as a possession. His possession. More than anything else, Cersei found the idea of anyone thinking they were above her, of any man thinking they owned her, impossible to forgive. “Oh, you may.” Then, Cersei looked at the guards. “Take him out the long way.” Littlefinger did not fail to notice her meaning, and pleaded for mercy even as the men hoisted him into the air, opened the nearby window, and tossed him out of it.

Cersei told the men to leave, and let the sound of that man screaming in terror ring through her head. She smiled. An indulgence of the Cersei personality, Alayne...Sansa told herself. She just needed to remember who she truly was.

From that day forward, all in the palace watched as Cersei slowly seemed to change her tune. Working to strengthen the realm, rather than tear it apart. Build up her son, rather than belittle or coddle him. Make friends, rather than tools. Still pragmatic, to be sure, but far more empathetic.

Of course, she had not changed completely. Sansa tried, but couldn’t help herself from engaging with at least a little of Cersei’s vices, just to keep her in check. Enjoying wine, filling her bed with attractive young men and women, and on occasion taking the chance to indulge in some cruelty. Always against someone who she felt deserved it, but cruelty nonetheless. After a few months of this, it was hard for Sansa to remember why she’d found any of it distasteful to begin with.

One night, she returned to her bedchamber to find Arya waiting for her. “I’m going to see Jon,” she explained, looking wistful. “I wanted to know...if you’d like to join me. Cersei can just disappear. Sansa can come back.”

It would be a lie to say that Cersei didn’t consider it. There was quite the appeal to the notion. But in the end, she shook her head and gave her sister a sad smile. “Perhaps one day. But for now, there is still much work to be done.” _And fun to be had_ , she added, in her own mind.


End file.
